Installation and test procedures of optical strain gauges for aeronautical applications

A new method is proposed for mounting a Fiber Bragg Grating to a substrate material and in this way forming an optical strain gauge. The strain gauges were optimized for usage in aeronautical applications and hence with stringent requirements on their performance. The installation procedure is easy, fast and reliable and happens by means of a specially designed mounting tool called a sensor pad. It is used in combination with a UV-curable adhesive. The performance of these sensors was investigated in an extended research program and the results of this program will be presented. It will be shown that the proposed optical strain gauges exhibit superior performance compared to their electrical counterparts and hence that this is a very promising method for strain sensing.